When, on May 1, 2004, the European Union was enlargedto include ten new countries, the British governmentanticipated a maximum of 13,000 immigrants peryear from eastern Europe. This assumption was basedon a estimate by the European Commission, accordingto which the old member states might expect a total of70,000 to 150.000 migrants from the newly accededmember countries. The Commission based its estimateon the EU accession of Spain and Portugal in 1986,which did not trigger any major migration flows.

But things turned out differently. For one thing, alongwith Sweden, Ireland and the UK were the only Europeancountries to open their borders without restrictionsfor immigrants from eastern Europe. And second,the prosperity gap between region of origin and regionof destination was far larger than it was in the case ofthe 1986 EU accession round. While at that time Spain’sper capita GDP was 73 per cent of the UK’s, in 2004Poland’s level of economic performance was no morethan 41 per cent of the UK’s.2 And if people can earnmore money as taxi drivers abroad than as academicallytrained professionally at home, emigration is attractivefor just about everyone.